Editorial: Art for leveraging, not sale - a way to help city and save DIA

Oct. 3, 2013

Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr has a job to do, and it includes not destroying the things that actually work in Detroit, or the cultural amenities that will help fuel its revitalization, such as the Detroit Institute of Arts. / Romain Blanquart/Detroit Free Press

Written by

the Detroit Free Press Editorial Board

And where the Detroit Institute of Arts is concerned, that difference might be everything.

Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr finally admitted Thursday what has been pretty obvious for some time. The DIA, easily Detroit’s most valuable asset (the ongoing appraisal of works in the museum is rumored to produce a valuation of $15 billion or more) will have to be rationalized in the city’s federal bankruptcy proceedings.

Essentially, that means its value, or at least part of it, must be leveraged (there’s one of those words again) to settle up with creditors who are being asked to take haircuts on what they are owed.

This is pretty standard bankruptcy fare. The city can’t hold the DIA entirely off-limits any more than an individual who files for bankruptcy can hide his grandmother’s china in the attic to keep from selling it.

But there are important sensitivities that Orr must consider with the DIA, and there are special considerations to account for because this is a municipal bankruptcy, aimed not only at writing down the city’s debt, but also protecting it from asset sales that damage its future viability. It won’t be easy to figure a way forward.

Selling art has to be off the table. It would likely void the millages that the museum got passed in three counties last year (a rare triumph of regional spirit), leaving it a shell of its former self. It would make the DIA a pariah in the international community of museums, whose rules prohibit selling art for profit.

That would make it impossible to attract the important exhibitions (remember “Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus,” which attracted 116,000 visitors in 2011?) that distinguish the museum. And it would send a dangerous message to future donors: Give us your art, but only at the risk of it being sold off if the city gets into financial trouble again.

Orr’s responsibility not to trash the museum is as important as his duty to settle Detroit’s debt, fix its finances and reorganize government. (Gov. Rick Snyder shares in that responsibility, by the way.) If he leaves behind a city without its premiere cultural jewel intact, he’ll be a miserable failure.

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So the question is how else to extract some kind of financial bounty off the collection without damaging it.

There are ideas that spring from leasing pieces, getting state help to “buy” and protect the collection, or — perhaps the most appealing option — using the collection as collateral for a note the city could use to help pay creditors. All the ideas deserve full vetting and exploration. The process should also focus on clearing up the collection’s status.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette says the collection is in public trust, which, if true, would protect it from being much a part of the bankruptcy process. Even if Schuette is wrong, or his determination doesn’t hold sway under federal bankruptcy law, Orr would be smart to acknowledge that the public (in addition to monetary) value of the collection, and treat it the way that millions in southeast Michigan see it: as a treasure.

It would also be nice to see museum officials taking a more realistic stance in the debate over its fate. To date, their position in local and national media has been: Hands off; the art’s not negotiable. But if the public trust argument gets shredded, that stance won’t be remotely defensible. The museum would seem a much more constructive part of the wider community if its leaders were more open to ideas short of a sale; it would be great if they might even suggest a few ideas of their own.

This is all part of the bitterness of bankruptcy. No one wants to be here, considering any of this.

But Orr has a job to do, and it includes not destroying the things that actually work in Detroit, or the cultural amenities that will help fuel its revitalization.

Leverage the DIA? Yes, that probably has to be done. But sell the city’s art? No way.